High-Pressure Investigation of the Reentrant Nematic - Bilayer-Smectic-ATransition

Abstract
We find that certain cyano Schiff bases and cyanobiphenyls with alkyl or alkoxy end groups exhibiting a bilayer smectic-A phase also exhibit a reentrant nematic phase at high pressure. A tentative model of the bilayer smectic phase held in place via the attractive interaction of the alkyl or alkoxy chains accounts for most of our experimental results.